European Championships Event Finals Scores

Scores from the Event Finals can be found here (yes, it’s a PDF):

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Thoughts:

• Sandra Izbasa won floor exercise. That’s my girl! (I admit that I was clapping along with her music while I was watching.)
• I was shocked that Vanessa Ferrari did not get any medals. As much as I don’t prefer her, this is very alarming.
• I was equally shocked that Beth Tweddle did not medal on bars, because of a mistake. But by all accounts she was laughing at her mistake after her routine–Good for her, being a good sport about it and realizing that everyone makes mistakes. And Bravo for her silver medal on floor exercise!
• I have yet to see Ksenia Semyonova’s gold-medal balance beam routine. Everyone seems to be happy about it. Her bars routine is same as ever.
• Becky Downie looked ill, by some accounts. If she really were sick, I wish she’d just pulled out and let Marissa King vault, but oh well, her call. I read that there was a flu/cold going around the Brit gymnasts. She screwed up her event finals, but maybe if she weren’t sick she could do better. She’s been tabbed as Beth’s successor, hopefully we shall see bigger and better things from her in the future.
• And Bravo to Ana-Maria Tămârjan for her bronze on the floor exercise.
• Oksana Chusovitina finally gets a gold medal at Europeans…but she got it even when she splatted one of her vaults. She was not pleased, even with the gold…makes sense because she came from the era when a fall meant NO MEDAL AT ALL. (EDIT: Never mind, apparently she was actually quite pleased…I was watching her directly after her score came up and she wasn’t grinning Shawn Johnson-like so I assumed that she was pissed.)
• I am proud of Anna Pavlova for throwing her Amânar vault, even though she splatted it.
• And poor Steliana Nistor fell on balance beam. It seems she can’t get through a major competition these days without falling from that damn beam at least once.

Other stuff will come later.

Congratulations to all medallists, ESPECIALLY to my girl Miss Sandra Raluca Izbasa.

Sandra Izbasa, 2008 European Championships event finals, floor exercise

Look at that smile!